


Under the Milkyway Tonight

by superorganism (stormae)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Body Modification, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Langst, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Post Season 4, Rebel!Lance, Self-Esteem Issues, smut?, this fic is tropey and self-indulgent but i hope people enjoy it regardless
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-25 11:16:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12530104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormae/pseuds/superorganism
Summary: Team Voltron were on-planet, dismantling a Galran stronghold and depriving the vindictive empire of crucial resources, when Lance noticed there may be others that need his help. Doing so leaves him a little worse for wear, and minus a leg. But that would've all been quite manageable, had Keith not turned his wrath on the wounded Blue intergalactic soldier;Keith is hot-headed and Lance is extra vulnerable to the Red paladin's words. Keith hadn't meant it, not really. He'd certainly never meant that Lance should no longer be a part of Voltron. He'd never think that, not even in his most enraged moments, simply because it was inconceivably false. It would never happen.Unless Lance has anything say about it.Alternatively: Lance leaves Voltron and Keith doesn't know what he's going to do





	1. Xutreonian Phuxmasys to the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This story takes place post-season 4, but Keith has returned from his time with the Blade of Marmora and the lions have their original pilots. The specific logistics will be elaborated in the beginning of the story, this is just a lil forewarning.

Xutreon was a horrific planet in Lance’s well-informed opinion. It was a tiny little red planet in the fourth orbit of the Epsilon Kraz system, and it could implode for all he cared. It was solely landmass, not a drop of water or a shred of natural life. No occupants other than the Galra.

Lance winced as sweat seeped from his hairline, slipping into his eyes. Xutreon was also super volcanic, bringing the temperature to an uncomfortable oven-like heat. The gravity was Earth-normal but the atmosphere was dense, requiring the the paladin suits to be working hard keeping the humans inside with air that didn’t adversely effect their lungs.

Xutreon was, in Lance’s opinion, Epsilon Kraz’s own personal Hell. It was actively occupied by swathes of Galra due to the myriad natural resources expelled by the scattered volcanoes. The Leritis mineral was one of the most volatile but powerful energy sources this side of the Solymus Cloud. The Galra had established a single central building that mined the minerals and ores from the ground, and spread as derivatives of the mane base were bunkers filled with captured rebel forces. Xutreon was the only real reason the Galra Empire was even interested in Epsilon Kraz, subjecting the other orbiting planets to aggressive Galra rule.

Voltron’s mission: go planet-side, destroy the base, release the rebel forces and leave.

“Shiro,” Keith’s gravelly voice rang clear through the comms of Lance’s helmet, but he didn’t need the system anyway. Keith was standing shoulder to shoulder with him, brow furrowed as he peered around the corner at the final target, the huge mineral extractor surrounded by the last Galra forces in the base. Backup was certainly coming, but if Voltron could act fast enough they could be off planet before any more fluffy purple feet made their mark on the tiny red rock.

“I’m in position on the opposite side,” Shiro said, “Pidge, Hunk, are you ready?”

“Roger that,” Hunk confirmed, a similar sound of confirmation coming from Pidge.

“You’re good over there?” Shiro checked, referring to where Lance and Keith were facing the greatest concentration of enemies.

“I’m _great_ over here,” Lance quipped back, “Keith is as mediocre as always, but he’s doing his best, so I’d prefer if you didn’t comment on it, Shiro.”

The issue with Keith’s proximity was his ability to shoot his sharp elbow back into Lance’s gut with considerable force. There was no real malice in the action though, which was a development stemming from them learning to rely on each other when Shiro went missing. Lance had been worried that upon his return from his time with the Blade of Marmora Keith would have forgotten how well the two could get along, how nice it felt to spend time with each other, how much happier they both were. It seemed like something Keith would do.

But after Keith returned following a particularly dangerous mission in which Princess Allura almost did not make it out alive, Lance as relieved to see that their friendship, their relationship, hadn’t slipped. In fact, if Lance looked hard enough and really worked his imagination, he could almost notice more affection in Keith’s actions than he remembered.

Coran had drawn the line, making it clear that Allura was more important alive as the diplomatic head of the coalition and the last remaining royal Altean than she was dead as the blue paladin, and Matt had not been willing to get into the pilots seat. They needed Keith more than ever, and were prepared to beg for him to return. Lance had a speech planned out and everything.

But what had really shocked them all was when Shiro announced that Keith had suggested her return. It had been his idea, totally of his own volition. Lance couldn’t believe it. Keith was stronger and more skilled than ever, especially back behind the controls of the red lion for the first time in what seemed like forever. Certainly since Shiro disappeared all those rotations ago. And Lance was back in Blue. Things were good. That really should have been the first warning sign.

The team moved forwards with the ease and synchronicity of hours of practice. A streak of light from Hunk’s canon blaster, a whir of green from Pidge’s blade and they all swung into action. Lance bent his knees and lowered his centre of gravity, picking off sentries and scattered soldiers. Keith moved forwards with the carefulness of an angry elephant, but his sheer skill made up for lack of subtlety. As practiced, Keith cut down a galra soldier with a blade to the torso, hooking his hand into the scruff of its neck and throwing the body backwards using the momentum of the moment. The body landed near Lance, who dropped to his stomach and lifted his rifle to rest on the unmoving body. Lance four years ago would have found this gut-wrenching, obscene, unbelievable. Paladin Lance loved the practicality of it, the way he and Keith were so fine-tuned with their manoeuvres that talk was very rarely ever necessary.

It’s not like Lance forgot about the rest of the team, though. It was just that he and Keith really made up for where each other lacked. Lance was pretty sure Keith would rather be paired with Shiro, but Shiro was actually much better unhindered, able to lend a hand to whichever paladin needed help without abandoning another. Keith would just have to make do with Lance. _Lucky him_.

With the added stability, Lance was able to accurately target almost any Galran enemy in the room, picking them off with a kill-shot before moving on to the next clear target. He was good at watching their backs, it was something he took very seriously. They trusted him enough to leave their lives in his hands as they focused in front of them, and it was not a fact that Lance took lightly, despite the flamboyant facade.

The room began to thin of live beings, the ones that were left were struggling against the paladins. That was why when through his scope Lance saw two soldiers slip past Pidge and flee the room down a hallway that would take them outside, he picked himself up off the ground and bolted after them without much thought. There was one more bunker filled with rebels the team hadn’t been able to locate yet, and if Lance were to hazard a guess these two runaways were a fairly good lead.

Lance skirted the room and pounded the metal hallway in pursuit. His team did not call out to him over the comms, so he assumed they hadn’t notice his absence. Too busy still fighting.

His eyes eyes landed on the two escapees just as they slammed their hand over the sensor and the door to the outside world slid open. The very sight of the hard red rock beyond made Lance’s resting smirk dip into a frown. The sound of his boots hitting the polished floor were muffled as soon as they hit red rock.

It only took the Galra one moment to slip up enough to award Lance victory. They glanced into the distance, where he could make out a bunker hidden behind a burgeoning volcano, just hidden enough that the team would probably have mistakenly overlooked it in the hurry to get back to the lions.

The two running Galra stopped in their tracks, spinning and raising their weapons in Lance’s direction. Victory or death was the Galra way, and they had obviously decided that reinforcements would not come soon enough to aid them in an eventual victory. It was here and now.

Lance stopped and lifted his bayard, peering through the sight to catch the head of one of the Galra in his cross hairs. He didn’t give himself time to be sure, instead his index finger squeezed around the finger and he shot. The Galra fell from Lance’s scope.

Apparently not before he’d had a chance to fire, though. Whether the fallen enemy was a ridiculously talented shot or it was a stroke of poor fortune for Lance was irrelevant when Lance felt the impact of the blast against his right side, sending him flying backwards. It was barely a moment before the adrenaline had him sitting up, lifting his blaster to level at the rapidly approaching fighter and shooting, but his own blast passed the hurled sword of the opposition. Lance’s shot landed, but so did the Galra’s. It was not life-threatening and hurt nowhere near as much as the blast to the side, but the slice the Galra sword had administered to his leg was painful and large.

There was _no time,_ though. Lance knew that. So without a sound and barely a wince he heaved his body from the hellish rocky earth and began running in an off-kilter manner towards the prison bunker. He disposed of the sentries from a safe distance and blasted the bunker door open, allowing the scores of prisoners to filter out into the harsh sun. Some wore feeble suits designed to keep them barely functioning in Xutreon’s atmosphere but many of them were stark naked, all species Lance recognised from the surrounding planets in the solar system.

“Come on, guys,” he grunted after giving them the ‘I’m a paladin of Voltron’ spiel. Normally he loved it, but not when he’d spent the last ten minutes ignoring his teammates’ dialogue and the past five ignoring the aching pain spreading through his body and poking tendrils at his brain.

“Lance!” A voice through the comms that he’d been drowning out in the rush of the fight snagged his attention.

“That would be me,” he wheezed, but the injury in his body was barely recognisable in his voice.

“You fucking god damn _idiot_ ,” Keith’s voice was palpably furious, “are you totally unaware that we need to be able to rely on you? To perform strategies? To watch our backs? Or do you really not care?”

“I—“

“Keith,” Shiro cut Lance off, but his voice also sounded annoyed, “We’ll discuss this when we get back to the castle ship.”

“Guys, I—”

“ _Lance_ ,” it was Shiro again, “save it.”

“Yessir,” he forced a chipper tone, not letting the admonishing get him down in front of the rebels he was leading towards the lions. It didn’t take long to cover ground on the tiny mass that was Xutreon, and he was infant of the assembled lion and pointing the rebels in the direction of Yellow in under ten minutes. Hunk flashed him an easy smile, but Lance was pretty sure that was his default face, the sweet fella. Pidge and Shiro ignored him, climbing straight into their lions. Lance didn’t let himself focus on it, though. He needed all mental faculties employed in keeping him upright. All his efforts were in jeopardy when Keith forcefully brushed past Lance on his way to Red. Lance stumbled and his face crumpled in a silent externalisation of pain, but Keith was already stalking into the cockpit.

Lance piloted Blue back to the landing dock with relative ease, Voltron had somehow managed to be quick enough that the Galra hadn’t been able to deploy backup in time. Their whole enterprise on Xureon was useless now, anyway. Maybe they’d not deemed the effort worthy of extra forces. Not when Voltron was whittling the Empire down to a shadow of its past.

Lance was the last back to the hangar, and for good reason. He stumbled from the Blue Lion, holding his helmet in one hand and pressing the side of his torso with the other. His armour was suffocating him and all he wanted was a shower and to wrap himself in his doona, but he knew he would have no such luck.

The rest of the team rounded on him, the lambasting led by a scowling Keith. His dark eyebrows were furrowed aggressively over his transfixing purple eyes. Lance much preferred the softer gaze he’d gotten used to noticing, or _hoping_ he was noticing. His heart sank to his stomach. He was wholly incapable of dealing with Keith in that moment, but that wasn’t going to dissuade him.

Keith stormed forwards until he was well into Lance’s space, a furious glower marring his handsome features. Lance moved back instinctively—nothing about that aura of his was warm or inviting—and winced as his muscles moved.

“What _the fuck_ was that?” He demanded, voice furious.

“Keith,” Shiro was audibly tired, and muttered his name was not a tactic that had ever worked on Keith.

“What?” Keith hissed back, purple eyes never glancing away from Lance as he pinned him with a murderous gaze, “You know you’re better at long range fighting because of your gun, you know we need to stay in formation so that all bases are covered and we can all perform our roles, you _know_ running off like that gets people _killed_! Do you have no regard for what being in a team means.”

Lance’s hackles raised and his tired features morphed into a sneer, “When have you ever been the champion of rational thought and acting as part of a team? I’m willing to cop a lecture, but from anyone but _you_. Being impulsive and running off to serve your own agenda has only ever seemed to get you praise and adoration, but that must be because you’re so _fucking_ good at everything, that you can do no wrong. And we’re defenders of the Universe, dying is a potentiality. Is that why you came running back here with your tail between your legs? Because you couldn’t handle the Blade’s ‘succeed with the mission or die trying’ motto? Could you not sleep because nobody was rocking your cradle at night?”

 _I can’t believe I just said any of that_ , Lance reeled inside his head, _none of that is true._

And when Lance didn’t think it would be possible, Keith’s anger spiked higher, rage marring the smooth lines of his mouth. He had a thin cut above his brow, tarnishing pale skin with bleeding red trails. He opened his mouth to snap back, lifting a finger and jabbing it against Lance’s chest.

“We all know that we might die any day, but not if it can be prevented, you real piece of shit. You wandering off on your own to play the hero and woo a girl could mean the difference between one of us surviving or being shot in the back, but you obviously really don’t give a damn. It really sucks that paladins are indispensable, or I’d say you should be grounded. You’re worthless to the coalition, to Voltron, if you’re going to run around like the main character of a shitty superhero movie. Dead weight that we shouldn’t have to worry about.”

Lance felt every word like a slap to the face, a kick to the knees, and punch to the gut. Tears were pushing at the backs of his eyes because yes, of course this was what Keith thought of him. Probably had all along, but he was mature enough to make the best of a bad situation, make the most out of having to work with someone like Lance.

And Lance was not a delicate guy. Lanky, yes (he preferred _tall_ and _lean_ ), but he was broader and very solid after fighting a war for four years. His shoulders and arms were defined and his back and torso rippled with muscle. He needed all the natural armour he could get when his foes were so formidable.

But in his current state, the slight push of a single digit was enough to send him crumpling to the ground in an exhale of breath. His body throbbed and his vision flashed to black before he could see again.

There were cries from the team and the sound of footsteps rushing forward, but the face that suddenly dominated his vision was the face that had until moments ago been screaming angrily in his face. He didn’t have the time to be surprised by the expression on Keith’s face, firm and still evidently angry but undoubtably softer.

“I’ll carry him,” Shiro said, his face also coming into view. He had carried him before, and Lance knew for a fact he could fling him around as if he were nothing.

But Keith turned to look back at Shiro and shook his head, before refocusing his attention on Lance. One arm went around his knees and the other went to his shoulders as Keith picked him up gently and held him close to his chest. From his position he could see the furious clench to Keith’s jaw, but the arms that held him were mindful. He began the walk to the infirmary with as quick and smooth a stride as the shorter man could manage. He was holding Lance as if he weighed nothing, though, which despite the context of the moment made Lance’s heart skip a beat.

As if the situation couldn’t worsen, the alarms starting blaring throughout the castle, informing the paladins of another Galran threat. The reinforcements had come after all, and the castleship was yet to wormhole out of the system. Shiro swore quietly, the footsteps of the team that were trailing behind Keith and Lance faltered and stopped. They were torn.

Coran and Allura appeared in the hallway, and in a moment Lance could smell the floral perfume that always emanated from Allura. He could feel new hands trying to worm their way around his body, but Keith jerked him closer to him.

“Keith,” Allura’s voice was firm, leaving no room for argument, “this is not the time to be stubborn. The team needs everyone it can get. We are down one lion out of necessity, it does not need to be two. Relinquish Lance to me and he will be in a pod when you return.”

There was a moment of hesitation that Lance was too faded to notice, putting the delay down to his lack of functional brain matter, before he felt himself shifting towards another chest, the arms thinner but just as strong. And then it was the sound of Allura’s feet beneath him as he was carried to the med bay. Lance distinctly missed the warmth he had just been feeling.

He was lowered gently onto an examination table, Allura and Coran making quick work of his suit. When he was laid out bare on the table, even his lagging senses noticed the pause.

“Not so crash hot?” He managed over his shallow, reverberant breathing.

“We suspected the wound to his abdomen,” Allura muttered, “but what is _this?_ ”

Lance felt delicate fingers skim his left leg, starting mid shin and ending at his toes. The hands weren’t even focusing on the open wound. The featherlike touch was searingly painful against his skin, but he did not squirm. His vitals betrayed him though, his body temperature spiking and his heart rate pounding away at an alarming speed.

“It’s poison,” Coran’s voice was sombre, “I’ve seen it before. Galra dip some blades in Phuxmasys, a toxin harvested from the rocks on Xutreon. It just… kills everything it has access to. Very Galran.”

Lance didn’t hear anything else, because Coran was injecting him with a needle filled with anaesthetic that had the world fading out.

 


	2. Mended or Replaced

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith thinks he's ruined everything, but he forgot it's Lance he's dealing with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is my peace offering before I ruin everything

After being called back out into space for that mission—after leaving Lance to the Alteans Shiro had repeatedly reminded Keith that he trusted with his life—Keith had never fought so fiercely. He had never wanted to be out of his lion and back in the castle so desperately, and it showed in the erratic way he took down anything that was remotely in range. Pidge kept reprimanding him from the green lion, telling him to ‘cool his fucking jets’ before more paladins wound up hurt, but that only spurred him on.

Since they got back to the castleship Keith had not left the med bay. He was never alone in there, another team member always hovering close by, but he never moved from his position by the door. The healing pod was on the opposite side from the room, as far from Keith’s position as possible. In that moment Hunk was leaning on an examination table right next to Lance’s pod, watchful eyes narrowed on his vitals display. Hunk had been beside himself by the time they got back to the ship and saw Lance in the pod, but he had quickly gotten himself together and taken to keeping a careful eye on Lance when he wasn’t bringing Keith food and asking him to go to his own bed. Keith was hardly about to do that, though. He didn’t like the way Coran and Allura had been brief to the point of secretive when the paladins had asked after Lance, and the fact he was in a pod none of them had seen before. The pod was dark grey metal all around, the only turquoise window being in front of Lance’s comatose face. The pod was meant to have ‘restorative properties’ more serious than the normal pods the paladins were sent in and out of, but Keith could hear the nervous quiver in Allura’s voice and spot the concerned crease to Coran’s brow.

Keith was contemplating going over and examine the pod while Lance was still out, when a noise came from the Altean machinery.

Then there was a green flash and the sound of a beep. Hunk hit a com button, calling the team to the room as his fingers tapped away. Keith wanted to know what he was doing, but he couldn’t find his voice. He thinks he’d uttered maybe three words since the mission. The last words he’d spat at Lance with so much vehemence were stuck to the underside of his tongue, preventing any words coming out of his mouth from sounding normal. All he wanted to do was apologise, because _fuck, he hadn’t meant it_. Of course he hadn’t. Of _course_ Lance cared. Lance was one of the most emotional people Keith had ever met, and he had a heart the size of his massive ego. Coran had noted to the team during debrief that it was very lucky that Lance had noticed and evacuated those last prisoners. After Voltron cleared out the planet, they would have been left there to go crazy in the confines of their little cell, most likely resorting to unsavoury means of survival before they all starved completely.

Keith wasn’t mad that Lance had run off and broken formation because really, Keith did that every second mission. He wasn’t going to deny that. He trusted his instincts and his own skills, and if he didn’t think he was capable of succeeding alone, he’d seek out Shiro or Lance. It had been Lance more often than not recently, especially after returning from the Blade. It was because Lance was such a good shot, so perceptive and just as intuitive as Keith. He could trust Lance to keep up with him if he deviated from what they’d planned. He could trust Lance with his life.

No, he realised. What had made him see red that day was the fact that Lance was so far away, so beyond Keith’s reach, his ability to help if needed. Lance had run off and made Keith anxious. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Lance, it’s that he in no way trusted Xutreon. It was infested with Galra when they’d arrived, and as talented as Lance was with his gun, he wasn’t going to get out of a swarm of soldiers and sentries alive. And then what was Keith meant to do? Sure, Hunk is a good shot as well with his blaster, but Keith felt an uncomfortable twist in his gut at the thought of replacing Lance with the friendly yellow paladin. Because Hunk _wasn’t_ Lance. They were both one of a kind and irreplaceable.

Spending so many weeks in isolation after leaving the Garrison had solidified what Keith had always vaguely known when he was growing up. Families are special because every single person brings a new dynamic that isn’t replicable. In the same way you could find someone else who was friendly and sympathetic and it wouldn’t be Hunk, Lance was much more than simply outgoing and loyal. There wasn’t another person in the universe who could be to Keith who Lance was. And that was why Keith had to fight back rage when Lance went around risking his life willy-nilly. Is he really not aware that without him Keith would have to reconsider _everything_?

The others members filtered into the med bay, and Keith heard Coran ask Hunk if he’d programmed the pod to keep Lance anaesthetised. When the doors swept open of the odd incubation pod it was Shiro’s big hands that reached in an gently lifted Lance out, moving him back to the examination table.

Bile rose in Keith’s throat at the sight of him. Not because he was ugly, _god no_ , nothing could be farther from the truth. It was just the reality that Lance was only a fraction of what he had been a week and a half ago when he’s disappeared from Keith’s sight down the hallway. His left leg was amputated below the knee, and it weighed on Keith’s heart. He’d seen him running off during that mission. He knew he was following a lead on another holding of prisoners, that Lance wouldn’t let something like that go unchecked, no matter how likely it was he would turn up with nothing. He’d seen him, and he could’ve have called for Shiro to circle round and support Pidge and Hunk, and then followed Lance himself. But he hadn’t. Lance did it too often, too often was Keith dragging him back by the scruff of his neck and devolving into screaming matches with him. He always just found it so easy to fight with him. Keith was a volatile person, and it was Lance that controlled his impulses. But when those impulses were about Lance, there wasn’t much to be done.

Anything, another screaming match, a punch to the balls, Lance hating and resenting Keith for all eternity would be easier on his heart than this. Watching Coran and Pidge carefully fit a white and blue prosthetic leg to the space below Lance’s left knee and strapping it tight. It was an amazing feat of technology, and it was probably sturdier and more useful than a human leg, but when it came down to it, it would be better if it wasn’t needed at all. Although a whole different species of tech to Shiro’s arm, Keith couldn’t help glancing over at the black paladin. Sure enough, Shiro was staring at the new mechanical leg with thick brows furrowed, his Galran hand clenching and unclenching at his side. The new prosthetic was fused to Lance’s leg so that it could not be removed, confiscated or dislodged, and then Coran injected Lance with something and his blue eyes fluttered open.

He came to slowly, sitting up and running a hand through the limp brown hair stuck to his forehead. Keith’s body was screaming at him to cross the room, bundle him into his arms and take him somewhere where Lance would stop putting himself at risk, but he remained where he was. With the words he’d said to him, Keith had no right to bridge that gap. Lance had hated him before, there was no redemption for him now.

The others were crowded around Lance, expressing relief he was alive, explaining the situation to him, encouraging him to try out his new leg. Notably straying from any mention that he had been poisoned and probably been on the brink of meeting death and all his friends.

He gingerly lowered himself from the examination table and held onto the edges until he was balanced and stable, before taking a few tentative steps. The foot worked seamlessly, intuitively replicating human biomechanics until there was not noticeable difference in his stride. Keith felt a lump in his throat that he swallowed down. He wanted to hug him, but hugging was not something he had done much in his life, let alone hugged the team member he was constantly butting heads with.

Lance’s eyes flitted over the small crowd until they searched beyond the immediate circle, finally resting on where Keith was leant. He was too far away for Keith to read his expression, seemingly blank. Shiro wrapped an arm around Lance and pulled his lean frame into his broad chest in a fatherly action that broke Lance and Keith’s eye contact. Keith felt as if he was suffocating. Without a word and for the first time in ten days, he pressed his hand to the scanner on the wall, opened the door and slipped from the room.

 

* * *

 

 

Despite all the goodwill and positivity in the world, nobody could truly say things were anywhere close to normal. Everybody seemed to be a shadow of who they had been two weeks ago. Everybody but Lance.

Lance was certainly not inhibited by his new leg. He was as light on his feet as ever, had a healthy appetite, was chirpy and tenaciously witty as always. It was unnerving for Keith.

When Lance had gotten out of the pod, with had been adamant that he would stay as far as possible from Lance. He didn’t think he’d be able to apologise for what he’d said on the hangar floor that day two weeks ago, and he didn’t expect Lance to forgive him either. Keith hadn’t forgotten what Lance had said to him, but he wasn’t mad at all. Lance’s words hadn’t attacked him as personally, hadn’t been as malicious as Keith’s. They had been spiteful, but were more playground insults than anything else. Nothing Lance hadn’t teased him about before. Nothing he was really insecure about.

But fuck, Keith knew Lance. He knew that he fretted about his worthiness, his ability to aid the team, whether he was the best pilot for the job. Ever since he’d returned to Blue’s cockpit, Keith had hoped Lance wouldn’t be so worried anymore, but really he should have known that talk in which Lance had divulged his concerns to Keith were not the root of the problem, but a symptom of something more. And Keith had falsely confirmed all of Lance’s deepest worries for what?

Keith knew what for. Bile rose in the back of his throat as he thought about it. It had been to get a reaction. Because he was the selfish one of the pair of them, he was sure. When Lance had run off he’d been too furious at himself to acknowledge that he’d felt a jealous twist in his gut that Lance was so prepared to run off and die, disregarding Keith’s own feelings. Keith needed him around, and he couldn’t be around when he was dead.

So, like a small child that didn’t know how to handle their feelings with any sort of delicacy—because when did Keith do _anything_ delicately?—he’d lashed out as aggressively as he could. To get a reaction. To see if Lance would show he cared about Keith, about what Keith thought of him. Which Keith should have been able to infer from the moment Lance came to him with his worries. Lance trusted him, and Keith had manipulated his trust to throw it back in his face.

And who’d forgive that?

Only someone with a heart of gold, someone like Lance.

Keith was going to stay as far from Lance as he could, but the morning after Lance popped out of the pod he was at Keith’s door.

He hadn’t even knocked, just sauntered in and fixed Keith with a blank stare.

Keith was sitting on his bed, polishing his bayard, but his hand holding the cloth faltered and stopped as he peered up at Lance, heart jumping three gears from a placid thump to a frantic jackhammer.

There was a pregnant pause, but Keith was certainly not going to be the one to speak first.

“I checked the training room, but you weren’t there,” Lance said, hands on his narrow hips, elbows out, exaggerating broad shoulders. Keith was surprised to see that he wasn’t wearing his jacket, just the blue and white henley pushed up to his elbows to reveal muscled, tanned forearms. The shirt strained against his strengthened build, a far cry from his lanky body from the garrison. Keith had bulked up a little more since entering space, particularly the few months he trained with the Blade, but he had been well-built to start with. Space had not matured him like it had Lance.

“I was here,” Keith said dumbly, removing his eyes from Lance’s chest to look at his immobile hands, furrowing his brows, “polishing my bayard.”

“Well, I can see that. I didn’t lose my vision, just half a leg.”

Lance had definitely meant it as a joke, but Keith winced anyway. Too soon to be funny.

Keith almost jumped out of his skin when he felt the bed dip beside him and the natural warmth of Lance’s shoulder near his. His head snapped up and he looked at the angular profile of the boy sitting next to him, endlessly confused. He didn’t see Lance look that serious very often.

“Why weren’t you at dinner last night?” Lance asked. It was a leading question, _why didn’t you come and see me_?

“I was tired, I came straight to bed,” Keith recounted.

“Not true, you went to the training deck,” Lance countered, “Allura said. Hunk took food to your room and you weren’t here.”

“I trained, then I was tired and went to bed,” Keith remedied. Lance worried his lip between his teeth for a moment before he seemed to decide on something, and his face brightened.

“If you think you can avoid my devastating good looks and natural charm that easily, you’re in for a world of shock, mullethead,” Lance said, standing up abruptly and spinning to look at Keith with a lively smirk. Then the pretence softened slightly, “I need your help right now, man.”

Keith blanched, before his voice came out a bit too eager, “Help for what?”

Lance let out a short bark of laughter, “Just with…stuff, I don’t know. Existing at the moment? With a half-alien leg?”

Keith let himself relax for the first time since Lance had entered the room, but the guilt that still encumbered his heart prevented him from falling back into the usual patterns of banter. “You seem to be coping just fine.”

Lance huffed a breath in frustration, “I _want_ to hang out with you, you bag of dicks. Next to Hunk you’re, like, my best friend!”

Keith surged from his seat on the bed to gape at Lance, “Do you not remember what happened in the hangar after that mission?”

Pain flashed across Lance’s expression and his eyes widened slightly. It was a infinitesimal moment, but Keith saw it. But then Lance was grinning and shaking his head, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, dude. All I remember is pointing Blue towards the castleship, and then waking up on that examination table.”

Keith didn’t have time to stop himself blurting out, “You’re lying.”

“Am I?” Lance lifted a brow, but his defences didn’t go up like Keith expected them to, which was unsettling in itself. Since when did Lance not take the bait?

Before Keith could press the issue more, insist that Lance did remember, tell him to stop being so benevolent and pretending it hadn’t happened, stop letting Keith get away with it, Lance was talking again.

“I actually do need your help with something, though.”

“What?”

“I want you to spar with me. I want some practice fighting with this new fancy leg,” he lifted his knee and wiggled the foot around for emphasis. Although the white metal glowed Altean blue in some places, the extremity was totally silent. No whirring mechanical noises as the parts moved together. It unnerved Keith totally.

“No.”

“ _Dude_ , come _on,_ ” Lance whined, “why _not?”_

“Don’t whinge like that,” Keith reprimanded, “And why don’t you ask Shiro?”

“Because I want to train with you?”

Keith’s stupid, soft heart tightened at those words. Lance was capable of convincing Keith of pretty much anything.

“You need to rest more,” Keith tried again.

“I was in an induced coma for two weeks, I’m super duper well rested.”

“Then you need, like, rehabilitation or something.”

“Which would probably include sparring,” Lance persuaded, his blatantly manipulative smile working wonders on Keith’s resolve, “C’mon man, I’m not asking you to drop me or decapitate me. We can start off as slow as you want to.”

“I should be saying that to _you_.”

“When have you ever said no to training? Who are you and where is the real Keith?”

“Fine, Lance,” Keith was exasperated but exhilarated. Those feelings frequently went hand in hand when Lance was around.

Lance grinned and clapped a hand to Keith’s shoulder, “Yes! Knew all I needed to do was lean on you a little, you soft touch.”

Keith shrugged Lance’s hand off and sent him a scowl, “Don’t touch me.”

“Hiss to you too,” Lance laughed, and the sound soothed the indignation that had been welling in his chest. Was he really that easy? “Let’s grab some breakfast first.” Lance didn’t leave much room for argument as he bounded from the room. And down the drain went all of Keith’s expert plans of tactical evasion.

He heard Lance yell from the hallway, “Hurry _up_ , mullet!”

Oh well.


End file.
